This invention relates to selectively inhibiting television receiving apparatus from displaying programs broadcasted on unauthorized (unsubscribed) television channels or programs which satisfy predetermined content ratings criteria and, more particularly, to a technique for blocking the display of a television program having undesirable content, such as violence, nudity, etc., while displaying acceptable television programs that could be received as an alternative in place of the undesired program.
Techniques have been proposed heretofore to permit viewers to selectively enable and disable television receiving apparatus to prevent undesirable television programming from being received and/or displayed. With the introduction of what is known as an electronic program guide (EPG), television program information which identifies the individual television programs that are transmitted over available broadcast channels, together with the time of day that each such program is broadcasted, now can be transmitted to television receivers, either by cable transmission, direct satellite broadcast transmission or conventional over-the-air transmission.
EPG data may be transmitted over a separate transmission channel, received by an EPG tuner tuned to that channel and stored for selective display on, for example, the display screen of a television receiver whenever a viewer wishes to retrieve and view such EPG data. The EPG tuner and storage device may be incorporated into a conventional television receiver or into a decoder of the type typically used in cable television or direct satellite broadcast systems. Such decoders or converters are known and, consistent with industry usage, are referred to herein, as set-top converters.
It often is desirable, and several systems heretofore have been proposed, to selectively block the reception and/or display of television channels due to, for example, the content of the programs on such channels. For example, parents often wish to prevent the reception of television channels broadcasting television programs that are of a violent nature or that contain explicit nudity, or are obscene or otherwise repugnant. Such parental lock-out systems employ a complete blocking technique which serve to block entire broadcast channels. That is, the reception or display of television program that are broadcast on a particular channel is totally prevented. In other systems using a selective blocking technique, the reception of television programs on particular channels broadcast during certain times of the day is inhibited. The television receiver may be tuned to that broadcast channel at certain times; but during late evening hours, for example, when the content of the television programs broadcast on that channel is unsuitable to be observed by children, the reception or display of that broadcast channel is blocked.
It is desirable to utilize EPG data to assist in automatically blocking the display of television channels broadcasting certain types of television programs or in blocking the display of television channels that are scrambled but for which the subscriber is not authorized to descramble. The present invention proceeds upon the desirability of "weighting" each program broadcast on each television channel relative to a standard and then selectively enabling television receiver apparatus to display the program broadcast on that channel if its "weight" is sufficient. Stated otherwise, the present invention proceeds in accordance with rating criteria which, for example, provides a numerical value of the degree of violence, nudity, obscenity, etc. for each program on each television channel. Such rating criteria, or data, is expected to be transmitted as part of the EPG data and, thus, is readily available for comparison with a viewer's own determination of whether that rating data exceeds the user's own rating code.